Quirky humour blended with a passion for conservation
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Quirky humour blended with a passion for conservation

Author Bibi Dumon Tak blends quirky wit, scientific knowledge, and conservation facts with poems formatted as modern communication techniques to draw young readers into the world of creatures with hooves. In an email conversation between a wild boar and a pig, a radio announcement about a cape buffalo, a 911 call about a mountain goat,…

The disability camp that started a revolution
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The disability camp that started a revolution

“This camp changed the world, and nobody knows the story.”  So begins co-director and narrator Jim LeBrecht in the opening scenes of Crip Camp. A critically lauded award-winning documentary film directed by LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham, Crip Camp tells the story of a summer camp and its impact on the disability revolution in the United…

Engaging our secular world

Engaging our secular world

In Wisdom from Babylon, Gordon T. Smith tackles the question, “What does it mean to provide leadership for the church in an increasingly secular context?” Smith is president of Ambrose University and Seminary in Calgary, a long time Teaching Fellow of Regent College, and author of several books on spirituality and vocation. The book is…

Peterson’s theological resonances

Peterson’s theological resonances

During the 2018-2019 academic year, I was startled by the large number of students discussing Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Everywhere I turned, Muslims, Christians and atheists were discussing and debating the socio-political perspectives and the mytho-poetic analyses that Peterson offered via YouTube, his book 12 Rules for Life, and…

History and advocacy
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History and advocacy

Dr. Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood takes the reader on a journey of the Christian woman through historical facts, clever quotes and heart-wrenching stories. As a professor of medieval, women’s and church history at Baylor University, Barr is more than qualified to lead us on this entertaining and knowledgeable exploration into why…

Hope through pandemic and resurrection
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Hope through pandemic and resurrection

Hamilton, Ontario poet John Terpstra is also a cabinet maker. Correspondingly, his writing hovers over themes of spirit and place. In Wild Hope Terpstra offers a sequel to In the Company of All: Prayers from Sunday Mornings at St. Cuthbert’s. There Terpstra concisely expressed that small congregation’s embodied spiritual desires, praises and hopes. With personal…

A field manual for racial justice
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A field manual for racial justice

Following the critical success of The Color of Compromise (2019), an exploration of white Christians’ participation in racism and white-dominated churches’ complicity, silence and tacit approval of racism throughout the history of the United States, Jemar Tisby offers this eminently practical exploration and application of his “ARC of Racial Justice” in How to Fight Racism….

Grace in the dark

Grace in the dark

In his little devotional book Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner says we should not look to Scripture for answers first of all, but instead listen to the questions it asks. Good advice. Certainty is a luxury the human race can ill afford. Conviction that “we” have answers and “they” do not has created a good deal…

Mother tongue

Mother tongue

De taal is ons vaderland, waaruit we nooit kunnen emigreren. Language is our fatherland, from which we can never emigrate. This slim volume of eclectic essays is a rich exploration of questions of identity, landscape, family, and translation. It is of particular interest to Dutch immigrants who might enjoy a thoughtful, playful look at language…

Seeking graceful hospitality
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Seeking graceful hospitality

Preston Sprinkle is a New Testament scholar, author and speaker, and in Embodied he combines story, science and scripture to explore the intersection of sexuality, gender and faith. With a comfortable cadence, Sprinkle explores the complex relationship between the theology and science of gender with a particular focus on transgender identities. Both the conservative and…